24 OCTOBER

1929 The master of the Keighley workhouse, Norman Card, was today reported to have been dismissed following a Ministry of Health inquiry into allegations about his conduct. Card was said to have been guilty of improper actions towards a maid, drinking, sending inmates for drink, and of touching the bedclothes of a girl who had been sleeping in the workhouse dining hall after a dance. 1899 On this day it was revealed that at the St Pancras workhouse infirmary, Highgate, a man named Alfred Edwards had jumped from one of the building's upper windows. The 70ft fall had resulted in his instantaneous death. Edwards, sixty-two, had been suffering from leprosy for twelve years or more. A spokesman for the infirmary said Edward had lived in an ordinary ward just like other chronic cases, just having his own special eating and drinking vessels. He had enjoyed being out in the gardens, smoked his pipe and had what he liked to eat. There had been no danger from him as leprosy did not flourish in northern climes, especially in the face of modern sanitation.